Is "bill" just the American word for invoice?

In everyday speech, often. In bookkeeping the distinction is the direction: receivable versus payable. That is the sense used here.

Do I need to record bills to use Perly?

No. Plenty of people only ever issue invoices. The other direction is there when you want it.

Can one document be both?

It already is — yours and your client's copies are the same sheet. What differs is the ledger each of you files it in.

Perly Invoice

Invoice or bill?

Last updated: November 2026

There is one document. Which word you use for it depends on which end of it you are standing at, and nothing else.

The same sheet, two directions

You do the work and ask for money: that is an invoice, and to you it is a receivable. Your client receives that identical sheet and files it as a bill — a payable, money they owe. Same parties, same lines, same total; the only thing that changed is who is reading it.

Which is why Perly has one editor for both. Choosing the direction swaps the parties and the numbering series, and everything else — the lines, the arithmetic, the currency, the payment block — is the same document.

Why record what you owe as well

You find out what a month actually costs. Subcontractors, software, the accountant, the one licence nobody remembers buying.
Nothing goes unpaid by accident. A bill with a due date behaves exactly like an invoice: it goes overdue on its own, and says so.
Your books balance at the end of the quarter without a reconstruction from bank statements and a folder of PDFs.

Separate series for each

Your invoices are yours to number, under your own prefix. A bill is best filed under the supplier's number, because that is the number they will refer to when they chase it. Perly offers a new bill a number the way it offers an invoice one — the day and which bill of the day it is, after the bill prefix in Settings: `BILL-20260930-001`. Type the supplier's number over it and the bill keeps theirs. Invoices and bills are counted apart either way, so what you owe never takes a number from your own invoices.

What about a receipt, a quote, a statement?

A quote is a price before the work, and creates no obligation.
An invoice is the request for payment after it, and does.
A receipt is the acknowledgement that it was paid.
A statement is a list of invoices over a period, not a request for any one of them. Sending a statement when you meant an invoice is a common and expensive mix-up.

Perly makes the middle two — the invoice, and the same document recorded as a bill — and marks a document paid with the date it happened, which is the part of a receipt that matters.

To try the sheet, write an invoice in the free invoice generator: no account, and the PDF is yours at the end.

Common questions

Is "bill" just the American word for invoice?: In everyday speech, often. In bookkeeping the distinction is the direction: receivable versus payable. That is the sense used here.
Do I need to record bills to use Perly?: No. Plenty of people only ever issue invoices. The other direction is there when you want it.
Can one document be both?: It already is — yours and your client's copies are the same sheet. What differs is the ledger each of you files it in.

Make one now

The generator is the front page. No account, no sign-up, no watermark — fill the document in and the PDF is yours.

Open the invoice generator